WRAPPED IN NATURE

Glutenfree Beetroot Chocolate Cake

We LOVE dark chocolate….. and chocolate cake (who does’nt!). We always try to put vegetables into all the cakes and biscuits I make; you can never get too many veggies, right!

After trying and testing many times it works fine to let vegetables, nuts or legumes replace flour, flavour ingredients or sugar… resulting in a cake that satisfy our sweet tooth but at the same time gives good nutrition and covers some of the daily dose of vegetables! Of course it is a different taste compared to ordinary chocolate cakes, because of the vegetables and the lack of sugar, but it is worth it and my kids really likes this (not saying that they would’nt also like a sugary chocolate cake ;)…..

In this chocolate cake the vegetables are beetroot and sweet potato; rootfruits that goes very well with chocolate and carob. I also fill up with black beans or adzuki beans, which can replace flour since it gets a floury consistence after being well prepared and blended.

The cake is good after cooling off, but it actually improves after 1/2 day in the fridge, it gets more firm and easier to cut.

Recipe:

Ingredients

Soaking time: 8 hours.

Cooking time for beans: 1 hour

Preparation time: 10 minutes.

180 g black beans or adzuki beans

100 g beetroot

150 g sweet potatoes

1 banana

80 g dark chocolate 85%

30 g coconut oil or grassfeed butter

50 g rice, buckwheat or maiz flour

1 cup nuts blended to flour

3 spoons of maple syrup

2 big eggs (for vegan: use 2 tbsp. chia or flax seeds and leave it soaking in the maple syrup for about 10 minutes)

Soak the beans overnight, rinse with water and boil for 1 hour in new water.

Blend beetroot, sweet potato, nuts and the black beans in a blender. When I blend these ingredients I normally do it in smaller portions at a time and put in an egg or the banana in each portion to make it blend easier. It is important that all ingredients are very well blended to give it a smooth and firm consistence.

Melt the chocolate and coconut oil on low heat

4. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and blend well. Put it into a mould covered with parchment paper – I like to use my wooden baking mould.

Sprinkle the topping over the cake and bake it for approx. 35 min. at 180 g. If you use beetroot and sweet potato as topping it can also be roasted in the oven (approx. 10 minutes) and sprinkled on the cake when baked.

This dough can also be made as muffins, they should be baked about 20 – 25 min.